The Idiot

he Idiot, as he took his place at

smile at the idea of the Idiot's thin

ges long," said the Id

of such a variegated Idiot as you are in all my experience, and that means a great deal, I can t

aving drank at the fount of your le

ly satisfied. To make Mr. Pedagog glare appear

at this point, "that Mr. Pedagog is my husband, and suc

ch I remember once or twice in my life to have heard it groan? To my mind, the latter is the truth. It is our table, because we buy it, and I am forced to believe that some of us pay for it. I am prepared to admit that if Mr. Brief, for instance, is delinquent in his weekly payments, his interest in the table reverts to you until he shall have liquidated, and he is not privileged to s

rivilege whether you have it

if I have to hire a gymnasium for the purpose. But to return to Mrs. Pedagog's remark. It brings up another question that has more or less interested me

not?" asked Mr. Whitecho

d our number from ten to nine we were permitted to address our friend Pedagog in any terms we saw fit, and whenever he became sufficiently

fully. "For myself, I do not at all object to anything you may choose to

Pedagog must be assured. I on principle side against Mr. Pedagog, and if it be the wish of my good landlady that I shall refrain from playing intellectual battledore and shuttlecock with her husband,

-Master. "You mean well. You are a little n

arting under the recollection of former breakfast-tabl

ely I should be translated in short order," retorted t

put in the Lawyer. "It would take som

the Idiot. "Procee

to," said Mr.

omething, even if it is only holding down a chair so that it won't blow out of your office window. If you haven't any justice to mete out, y

business," gro

should hate to have known as mine it is that of libel. I think, however, your definition is not definite.

tion your conviction would be a bad thing, because you would be likely to prove a corrupting influence in any jail in creation. Besides, you'd be safe before a jury, anyhow. You are just the sort of idiot that the intelligent

had a half-dollar I should pay you for your opinion; but since I haven't, I offer you my all. The t

Pedagog. "Mary, get t

placing the empty bit of c

ry," said Mrs. Pedagog,

'am?" aske

ceiving Mrs. Pedagog's point. "I asked

I ASKED FOR

her own joke. At hair-splitting

d more coffee," continued the Idiot, in an aggrieved

would be a good thing if you were. In replenishing your m

ery start I have had luck. When I think that I was born myself, and not you, I feel as if I had had more

nd, as if he were ridding himself of a troublesome gna

ask you an easier one. Why does n

ed. Here, indeed, was

the idiotic questions I-er-I have ever had

uggested

Mr. Whitecho

ony is the science, or the art, or whatever you

said Mr. Whitechoke

ing an usher at the ceremony, yielding the position of best man gracefully, as is my wont, to the Bibliomaniac. He was best man, but not the better man, by a simple process

" asked M

home there is a disposition to regard them as two. When I spoke of there being nine persons here instead of ten, Mr. Whitechoker himself disputed my point-and yet it was not so much his fault as the fault of Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog themselves. Mrs. Pedagog seems to cast doubt upon the unity by providing two separate chairs for the two halves that make up the charming entirety. Two cups are provided for their coffee. Two forks, tw

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o. The Idiot looked inquiringly at all, and then, rece

e made it up of the things you people don't know, it would be one of the greatest books of the